Regulatory compliance of marine protected areas

Quintana, Anastasia C, Atlantic Beach NC

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Steven Gaines at University of California Santa Barbara, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating regulatory compliance in natural resource management. Noncompliance and rule breaking can threaten the effectiveness of resource governance and the sustainability of their associated resource systems. In the world’s oceans for example, illegal fishing is considered one of the greatest threats to marine ecosystems. Political science theory predicts that self-governance (regulations devised and enacted by resource users themselves) leads to high levels of compliance compared to “top-down” regulations imposed by governments. However, this has never been empirically examined at a large scale. This project tests whether self-governance increases regulatory compliance with marine protected areas, a widespread tool for fisheries management, through the analysis of a large dataset collected by a partner organization, Rare. In addition to the training of an early-career scientist, this award advances the fundamental behavioral and political science of compliance, and has the potential to advance global fisheries equity and sustainability. This project uses a multidimensional model of regulatory compliance to compare compliance types and extent under different governance arrangements, and contributes primarily to common-pool resource theory, a theory of collective action for natural resource management. Predictions based on either legitimacy or rational-choice models have not been able to explain or predict compliance in natural resource management, such as in the case of fisheries. A new multidimensional model of compliance (“motivational postures model”) from social-ecological theory has recently been proposed to understand compliance with state-implemented regulations, which we use to compare the extent and type of compliance under self-governance and top-down governance arrangements. This project uses a large dataset collected by Rare for their Fish Forever program, with quantitative and qualitative data on noncompliance in hundreds of sites where no-take marine protected areas (areas where fishing is banned) have been implemented, along with gear restrictions and other fishing regulations. Analysis of this large dataset will be complemented by original mini-ethnographic case studies of several select sites. This project challenges binary conceptualizations of compliance, instead using a framework that engages with resistance, power, and equity. This project contributes to fundamental research on human behavior around co-managed resources, with broader implications for resource sustainability and legitimacy of institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.